Yankees get their man in Carlos Rodon, and Aaron Boone is happy to have him
Yankees manager Aaron Boone talks with guests at the Yankees' Winter Wonderland event at Yankee Stadium, Friday, Dec. 16, 2022, in Bronx. Credit: Corey Sipkin
When the Yankees consummated their deal with lefthander Carlos Rodon on Thursday, adding a front-end arm to a rotation that might have several of them, they did more than just acquire their top pitching target of the offseason. They also ended their years-long quest for the guy.
All it took was a $162 million guarantee across six years, Rodon’s reward after back-to-back All-Star seasons.
“He's been on our board a lot the last couple of years,” manager Aaron Boone said Friday afternoon at Yankee Stadium, where he participated in the team’s annual Winter Wonderland gift giveaway to local kids. “To see him now go out and really put together the kind of seasons he has the last two years is a realization of [what] a lot of people within the industry expected out of him when he was a top pick out of NC State.
“He's become one of the game's really great pitchers, and the way he's shown the last couple of years he's a top-of-the-rotation guy. Hopefully he continues to realize that potential, and I think over the last couple of years he's probably learned a lot about himself and his mechanics. I know he's made some mechanical changes that have really unlocked him and unleashed him and turned him into the pitcher we've seen the last couple of years.”
Rodon, 30, who pitched for the Giants last season and the White Sox the seven seasons before that, has a relatively short track record of success, limited to the past two years. He was very good in that span — his 27-13 record, 2.67 ERA, 1.00 WHIP and 12.2 K/9 ratio were better than Gerrit Cole’s marks — but not so much before that.
In that sense, the Yankees are making the gamble that the recent Rodon is the real Rodon. If that is the case, they have put together quite a rotation.
“That’s the challenge of it. That’s ultimately the job, trying to make those good, solid selections and projections,” Boone said, adding later of the rotation: “As we sit here, it’s December, you love the way it looks. It always comes down to going out and doing it now, but we certainly feel like we have a chance to have a really special group.”
Near the top of the Yankees’ remaining offseason work is figuring out leftfield, which got harder Friday when Andrew Benintendi reportedly agreed to a five-year, $75 million contract with the White Sox.
Benintendi did all right after joining the Yankees in a trade deadline deal with the Royals last July, hitting .254 with a .734 OPS. He played in only 33 games before breaking a bone in his wrist and undergoing surgery that ended his season. Boone said Benintendi “fit in really well.”
But now the Yankees will move on to the next one. Former Met Michael Conforto is still out there, and his agent, Scott Boras, said he is looking for a short-term deal after missing last season because of injury. Adam Duvall, Jurickson Profar and AJ Pollock are free agents, too.
Might Oswaldo Cabrera, who played every position besides pitcher and catcher in 2022, be the everyday answer in left?
“Cabrera can be an everyday a lot of things,” Boone said. “I love the player, I love his makeup. He showed this year that whatever situation you put him in, he's equipped to handle it. I've said all along, I think he's a guy that, we're gonna look up in 10 or 12 years and he's had a really long, strong big league career. And I think this year he proved that he could potentially do that at a lot of different positions.”
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
